Iraq’s attorneys practicing in a state of fear
Those who haven't fled prefer the dictator's law to none at all
By Nelson Hernandez and Saad al-Izzi
The Washington Post

Updated: 6:34 p.m. MT June 10, 2006

BAGHDAD - "We are living in terror," Kamal Hamdoun, the head of Iraq's
lawyers' union, said as he sat in a shadowy, cavernous office redolent
of better days.

As usual, there was no electricity in Hamdoun's second-floor office in
Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood. Sunlight slanted in through vertical
blinds, shining on ornate chairs painted gold and a huge desk piled with
legal folders.

"For example, I'm unable to move around freely," Hamdoun continued. "And
there's a gun in my drawer."

He slid open a drawer of his desk, revealing a cocked Browning pistol.

"The control of the jungle is for those who have claws and fangs," he
explained.

Scared of the light
Such is the life of a lawyer in a nearly lawless society. Iraq's legal
system, once one of the most secular in the Middle East, is a shambles.
If a "Law and Order" spinoff were set in Baghdad, it would feature
police who are afraid to investigate sectarian murders (or are complicit
in them, many say), lawyers afraid to take either side of a case and
risk the wrath of powerful militias or well-armed gangs, judges
assassinated for the decisions they have handed down, and the occasional
car bombing at the courthouse.

Two such bombings killed at least 17 people in May alone.

Iraq was hardly an example of blind justice before the 2003 invasion
that toppled Saddam Hussein, who ensured that nearly all lawyers and
judges were in thrall to his Baath Party. But for routine trials, Iraq's
legal system, designed in the 1920s to resemble the Egyptian and French
models, generally meted out fair justice guided by well-trained lawyers
and judges.

"It was an impressive overall legal system, as long as we did not get
into the political sphere," said Khaled Abou El Fadl, a law professor at
UCLA and a scholar of Islamic law. "What we have consistently forgotten
is how well-educated Iraqi academics are. They're sophisticated people
who know quite a bit" about Western law and government.

Ruing Saddam's fall
Now, many of the best-educated have fled the country, and yet life goes
on in the lawyers' union, Iraq's equivalent of a bar association, which
has 42,000 members nationwide. Well-dressed attorneys flitted in and out
of Hamdoun's office quietly, asking the union leader to sign papers.
Downstairs, they met in the dark, cigarette smoke-filled cafeteria below
Hamdoun's office, where they talked shop with each other or their
clients. Their sentiment was unanimous: They preferred the dictator's
law to none at all.

"We were waiting for the day when Saddam was gone," said one lawyer, Ali
Gatie al-Jubouri, who spent nine years studying engineering in Michigan,
only to become a lawyer after he inherited a fortune in property from
his father. "But now we feel sorry that Saddam's days are over. It's a
tragedy."

The lawyers, along with American legal scholars, almost unanimously
blame the United States -- particularly the Coalition Provisional
Authority, which administered Iraq in the year after Hussein's
government fell.

‘The law of power’
"The occupation adopted the law of power and not the power of law,"
Hamdoun said. "The lawyer's job is that of civilization."

Cherif Bassiouni, a law professor at DePaul University and president of
the International Human Rights Law Institute, said the authority's
biggest mistake was not having a comprehensive plan for legal reform or
the commitment of resources needed to restore the physical and
intellectual capital lost soon after the invasion.

"When the U.S. military came in, they basically destroyed the entire
infrastructure of the state," Bassiouni said. "Not willingly. But by
allowing the looting of all the public buildings, by firing everyone who
was a member of the Baath Party, basically the state was destroyed."

One of the authority's first acts was to dismiss many of the country's
most experienced jurists on the grounds that they had ties to Hussein's
Baath Party. Many did: Hamdoun, for example, served 12 years in the
Iraqi parliament under Hussein.

Missing dismissed judges
Abou El Fadl said the decision to dismiss the judges was a mistake. "We
dismissed a very large number of them on ideological grounds," he said.
"We have not been very sympathetic to claims that 'I had no choice but
to be a member of the Baath Party to accomplish anything in life.' In
doing so, we lost a great asset and a reservoir of legal minds."

The decision still rankles Abbas Hasan al-Anabaki, who said he was among
those purged.

"I used to be a first-degree judge in Baghdad, and politically
independent, and we were never linked to Saddam or others," he said.
"The Iraqi lawyers are totally confident in the American judicial
system. They just hoped that the reform would have been done by the
American judicial system, not the army and intelligence service."

Now, the lawyers said, nearly every part of the criminal justice system
is tainted, from the moment police arrest someone to the trial, the
judgment and the corrections system.

"The whole system has collapsed," Bassiouni said. "This has become a
lawless country. It's a little bit like the days of the Far West in
America. In the early 1800s, you may occasionally have the sheriff who
can get people to hand in their six-shooters at the entrance of the
town, but basically it's a free-for-all."

System in shambles
Anabaki, who has become a defense lawyer since he lost his judgeship,
said police have left his clients in jail for up to a year before even
reaching the courthouse, rather than presenting them to an investigative
judge within 24 hours.

"Justice lacks all credibility and meaning," Anabaki said. "There is
pressure from the political parties and the tribal leaders and the mafia
gangs and the American forces."

Raid Kadhum al-Dulaimi, another lawyer, said he was frustrated by a
different problem: a lack of cooperation from the Iraqi police,
especially the commandos who raid the homes of suspected insurgents.
"They don't allow us to read the cases of detainees," he said. "We can't
defend anyone who is accused without reading their file."

In the courtroom itself, things have remained in disarray since the
rampant looting of government buildings in 2003 after the fall of
Baghdad to U.S. forces.

"There is no infrastructure for the courts," Bassiouni said. "You go to
the courts, you hardly find desks and tables, let alone the
infrastructure that is necessary for the court to work. For example,
where do you store files? Where do you retrieve files? Where is the
evidence kept? There are no bailiffs."

Threats compromise justice
Even if a fair trial takes place, the judgment may not be applied.

"There are lots of verdicts that are not applied because of threats,"
Anabaki said. "We got a decision to evict someone from his house, but we
are afraid to evict him. He said, 'If you evict me, then you'll see what
I can do.' "

In Iraq, threats like that have to be taken seriously, especially in
cases of terrorism and murder. Two lawyers on Hussein's defense team
have been killed, and that is only the most high-profile case in a
country afflicted by unchecked violence.

Abou El Fadl said he had spoken to Iraqi lawyers on trips overseas and
received a dismal picture.

"The overriding sense I got was fear from everything," he said. "I can't
imagine you living under the kinds of threats these guys live under.
Whichever side you pick, whichever side you represent, you could end up
being killed or in a garbage dump or something. Law needs order and
stability to work. That's what the rule of law is all about."

Jubouri said the situation was taking a steady toll. The best lawyers
had already left the country or sought other jobs, fearing for their
lives. Some of the new judges were beholden to political parties or did
not have the minimum 15 years' training that was once required. And
newly trained lawyers were not honest, he warned -- "People need money,
so they'll do anything."

It was enough to make Jubouri cautious about revealing his profession.

"I'm not proud," he said. "When I introduce myself, I don't say I'm a
lawyer."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Iraq's attorneys practicing in a state of fear
Those who haven't fled prefer the dictator's law to none at all

By Nelson Hernandez and Saad al-Izzi
The Washington Post

Updated: 6:34 p.m. MT June 10, 2006

BAGHDAD - "We are living in terror," Kamal Hamdoun, the head of Iraq's
lawyers' union, said as he sat in a shadowy, cavernous office redolent
of better days.

"When the U.S. military came in, they basically destroyed the entire
infrastructure of the state," Bassiouni said. "Not willingly. But by
allowing the looting of all the public buildings, by firing everyone who
was a member of the Baath Party, basically the state was destroyed."

One of the authority's first acts was to dismiss many of the country's
most experienced jurists on the grounds that they had ties to Hussein's
Baath Party. Many did: Hamdoun, for example, served 12 years in the
Iraqi parliament under Hussein.

Jubouri said the situation was taking a steady toll. The best lawyers
had already left the country or sought other jobs, fearing for their
lives. Some of the new judges were beholden to political parties or did
not have the minimum 15 years' training that was once required. And
newly trained lawyers were not honest, he warned -- "People need money,
so they'll do anything."

It was enough to make Jubouri cautious about revealing his profession.

"I'm not proud," he said. "When I introduce myself, I don't say I'm a
lawyer."